


out on the new frontier

by coldhope



Series: HHCOD fills [26]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape/Non-con References, Sex Work, Troll Gills, non-sb/sg au, strange moirails, troll-human moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldhope/pseuds/coldhope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AHCOD fill. Non-SB/SG AU, trolls and humans living together, not petstuck. Dave is a DJ living alone and working on a photo series of the city at night. Cronus is a troll providing negotiable affection for xenobiology fanciers, once fairly pricy, now fallen on hard times. They discuss socioeconomic injustice, among other things. </p><p>Then Cronus doesn't show up to work. And Dave's creepy boss is <i>extra</i> creepy. And Dave learns that weapons-grade pathos is not a thing reserved for Broadway musicals, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm afraid this one is chaptered. Most of the AHCOD/HHCOD fills are oneshots (Fully Furnished being an exception), but this one got away from me. Note that this is not set in a petstuckverse: trolls in this AU are considered inferior species, but not animals, and certainly not pets.

_elementalsight requested: Cronus and Dave. Cronus is selling kinky troll sex on the street to survive (barely), Dave is working on a photo series of the city at night. Maybe they chat sometimes and Dave worries when Cronus isn't at his usual post for a few days. Maybe Cronus is doing this all to keep his little brother from the same fate. Dave doesn't understand what pale overtures are until too late. Extra bonus: Eridan's actually a sick little bugger and Cronus is paying for his meds this way._

~

 

_no one makes it out of here alive_  
 _and we all do what we need to_  
 _to survive_

 

Chantay is wearing green tonight--the kind of green that's unignorable even through the most jaded non-eye-contact shell. She spills out of the Lycra microdress in all directions. She and Krystelle look like women seen reflected in a funhouse mirror when they stand close: Chantay's exuberant bounty and Krystelle's visible sternum knobbles emphasize one another. "Looking good, ladies," you say, and Chantay shimmies a little in your direction, causing standing waves. 

" _Always_ lookin good, blondie. You got a cigarette for me?"

Since you started this project you've taken to carrying a pack: they buy fractions of goodwill, or at least fractions less of distrust. Your camera feels safer round your neck the more the workers call you by nickname. Tonight it's misty, and you want to see if you can get a shot haloing the streetlamps at the end of the dock street, but you're not in a hurry. "Sure," you tell her, and even light it with a disposable Bic. You're such a gentleman. 

She and Krystelle, who doesn't like you and isn't interested in hiding this fact, have the stretch from this corner all the way down to the cross street, but they share it with another worker, a specialist, who isn't at his post. He wasn't there the last time you hit up this stretch of town, either, come to think of it. 

You have learned a lot more from this whole experience than just what shutter speeds and film sensitivities and aperture settings work best with these lighting conditions and subjects; you have learned, for example, that there's apparently a thriving community of people willing to pay trolls to act out particular xenobiological fantasies. Pay reasonably well, in most circumstances; troll escorts make a decent living, for the most part, unlike street workers. It's one of those infuriating slippery-slope situations: you get paid well as long as you look and act appealing, and as soon as you stop being able to, for whatever reason, the money takes a corresponding hit, and then you can't make enough to pay for new clothes or medical treatment or whatever it is you're lacking, and you get worse, and so does the pay. Cronus has explained this to you with gestures, and you think if he'd had a blackboard he'd have demonstrated the Cronus Ampora Theory of Self-Propagating Societal Injustice. 

(You've taken his picture, too, with his consent; sometimes when he isn't looking, and sometimes when he is. The difference is startling. Being conscious of observation changes his body language completely, from a tired slouch to a cocky sort of hipshot contrapposto posing. His face changes, too. He looks both younger and more weary until he knows somebody's watching, and then it's all eyebrow-leering and knowing smirks.)

You realize you've been staring vaguely across the street, looking at where he'd normally be waiting for clients, for almost an entire minute. _Jeez, snap out of it, Strider._

"You want to move it along, blondie?" Chantay suggests. "You ain't exactly good for business, if you know what I mean."

"Right, right, sorry." You shake yourself and look up at the lamplights: might as well go try to get your shot. "One thing. Did Cronus move to another beat, or is he just not at work?"

" _That_ freak," Krystelle says, and spits. It's a good one, glistening like an oyster on the damp pavement. "He got the troll AIDS or some shit, I dunno, he was hackin' up whatever those things have for lungs the other day."

"He don't have troll AIDS, sheesh," says her coworker. "That's ignorant. There ain't no such thing."

"How do you know? You some kind of doctor now?"

You move away as they settle into the constant low-grade squabble that takes up much of their non-working time. 

~

None of the shots you take that evening turn out to be worth dick. You kinda had that feeling while you were shooting, but sometimes that feeling turns out to be completely wrong; it's unreliable. You pin up the contact sheets and test prints to dry, and go out to pour yourself a drink and stare moodily out the window, as you feel you kind of should. 

Ampora had taken up the beat a month ago, shortly after you'd begun working on this series. You don't know how he managed to negotiate for the territory, or how the other ladies took the sudden advent of an alien colleague, but you don't really want to think about it all that hard. A lot of the shit you have taken for granted throughout your life has been pointed out to you as not, in fact, universally the case, and this had first made you guilty and then resentful for feeling guilty and now just...tired. He'd told you some stories about his earlier days as an escort, when he'd had a pretty okay life. You wonder, again, what changed: what aspect of the income/expenditure equation had stopped balancing correctly. Something in his weird pointy face had told you not to ask. 

It's not an unappealing face, but very definitely not a human one. For one thing, he's grey but he glows purple in the dark, which is kind of trippy as fuck, and for another, he has these crazy goddam fin things sticking off the sides of his face which you think are just extensions of his ear cartilage, since he has them pierced. The purple dots of light are clustered along the ribs of these fins, dotting the sails. He has black hair that he keeps swept back in this hilarious Fonzie do, and his eyes are violet. He wears dark lipstick. He looks like someone art-directed the fuck out of him, in fact. 

He'd hit on you, but everyone along the streets hits on you, variants on "want a nice time?" and you'd learned to just say "no thank you" politely. Some of the time that got you a snicker; with him it had just made him stare and blink. 

_"What?" you'd asked._

_"Nothin', just...I don't get that one too often."_

_"What, 'no thank you'?"_

_"Usually it's more along the lines a 'fuck off, you fuckin' freak.'"_

_"...seriously?"_

_"You're new around here, ain't you."_

The next time you'd been in the area you'd stopped by, on a whim, and he looked legitimately glad to see you, despite the fact that time spent chatting with you was time spent not making money. He'd asked about your project, and you'd found yourself telling him more than you had planned to: what you wanted to capture about the darkened city, how you needed to do it with film instead of digital, because that was part of the whole thing, seeing it as light etching chemicals in analog rather than a sensor turning your shots into ones and zeroes. 

The next time you were in the area, you stopped by, not on a whim. It was hot as a motherfuck, one of those sodden humid nights when haze surrounded every point of light and sound had a weird funny flat effect, and he'd been in what appeared to be vinyl. You took a couple shots of the corner that you didn't plan to use, and then put the lens cap on. 

_"Hey, I'ma go down the corner store, get a Coke before I melt. You guys want one?"_

Cronus and Chantay had been the only ones working. Both of them gave you variants on _fuck yeah_. 

After that he'd called you _Dave_ instead of _Strider_. 

It's come on to rain outside. You close the blinds, go to flop on your bed and watch shitty Youtube videos until your general awareness that the world is unfair begins to fade. 

~

The photography gig is strictly by way of being a hobby. You pay rent by spinning at various clubs in a slightly less fraught part of town. Most of the time you like your job, except when there are bar fights--but Zoo Station is not one of your fave venues. For one thing, you got mugged outside it last year, and for another, the dude who owns it is toe-curlingly creepy. The only reason you keep coming back is that he's also generous as fuck with fees. 

You're in the middle of a break between sets two days after you stopped by Chantay's place of work when Mr. Dugan comes up behind you and whispers in your ear "I hear you like trolls, Strider."

Without either flinching away or jumping a foot in the air--your bro would be proud--you shrug. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Dugan chuckles. He's still way the fuck in your personal space; you think if he moved two inches closer his mouth would actually be touching your ear. "Nice to know there's fellow enthusiasts out there."

"No, seriously, what are you talking about?" His breath is warm on your skin. This is more than you're willing to put up with for the sake of a goddamn paycheck, Jesus. 

"Enjoyed a little arranged encounter recently. He mentioned your name."

The only troll you know who knows your name is Ampora, and you stiffen all over. Dugan laughs soft little puffs of moist air into your ear, and it's all you can do not to pull away. "I gotta get back to work, Mr. Dugan."

"Course you do, Strider. Course you do."

He gives your shoulder a squeeze, before finally, _finally_ , backing off, and you are unable to repress a shiver. You wipe your ear on your shoulder before you put the cans back on. 

By the time you're done your set, the workers have probably given up for the night, but you leave your equipment at the club and head down to the docks anyway. You'll pick up the gear tomorrow, when you come in for your paycheck. Your last paycheck from Dugan, anyhow. 

At first the street looks deserted, the pools of light under the streetlamps empty. It's quiet, except for a distant dog's barking, monotonous, on and on. You walk down the whole length of the beat, and it's only when he makes a sound that you notice him crumpled in the shadows at the end of the street. 

It isn't a good sound, either. He's coughing, a wet hack that sounds like it hurts. The glow is almost completely gone--there's just a faint outline of the fins visible in the darkness. You stare at him, and then squat down to roll him on his back.

The dim orange streetlight reveals what looks like bruising round one eye. He looks fucking terrible, sweating and definitely the wrong shade of grey, his glowing freckles almost out. "Jesus dick, Ampora," you say. "What the hell happened to you?"

He just coughs, ineffectively, and you realize he's only semi-conscious. You haul him upright and thump him firmly on the back, and that's enough to rouse him. "D...Dave?"

"The one and only, what the fuck, Cronus, what's wrong with you?"

"Fff...fuckin' john wanted gillplay few days back," you think he says. Is that a thing? Oh, God. That's a thing. You feel sick. "Maybe di'nt clean em out good enough. Feel shockin', Strider. Head's all goin' round an' round..."

"Yeah, okay, further discussion can be tabled," you tell him. "I'ma take you to my place--no funny business, I swear--"

He wriggles, shaking his head violently. "No, no, no, _can't_..."

"Look, dude, you're sick as fuck and I have no desire to bang you anyhow, I just...wanna get you someplace warm and dry and get some help."

He coughs a laugh. "I'm....fuckin' crushed....Strider. No. I...I gotta go home, shit, what....time even is it?"

You tell him, and he sucks in a painful breath and starts to struggle to his feet, spewing curses. "What, dude, seriously, what even is the deal?"

Verticality is not currently something he can manage on his own. He slumps back against you. "'s Eridan. 's my kid brother. He's....fuck, he's waitin' for me, I din't even make anythin' tonight, how the hell'm I gonna come up with forty bucks for his refill?"

"Oh, holy shit," you breathe. This situation just got into the weapons-grade pathos range.

~

In the end, you find a taxi--having to venture several blocks further afield to do so--and take Ampora round to, oh, look, he lives in a fucking tenement, let's pile on the misery, why don't we. You don't particularly want to remember the rest of that night: the tiny room with its mirror and makeup carefully placed against the wall, the mattress on the floor Cronus apparently shared with his little brother, the small bundle of blankets itself surrounding a pale face with fins like Cronus's own, the same zigzag horns, a tuft of violet in the kid's messy hair. 

You are good at dealing with things that are hard to deal with. You are good at handling situations. You are _thisclose_ to flipping your shit to the goddamn moon and back because _how is this even your life_ , playing Jean Valjean to a troll hooker and his kid brother in the small hours of the morning. So you do what you've always done when you legit are at the end of your endurance, when you got nothing left, when you honestly need help. 

You text Bro. 

TG: hey  
TG: so  
TG: i got a kind of situation here  
TG: could maybe use some patented strider sickwicked wisdom and advice  
TT: You slew an Arab, didn't you.  
TG: bro this is no time for sartre cmon  
TG: uh its actually  
TG: time for victor hugo  
TG: theres this troll i know right  
TG: who kind of like does specialized escort work  
TT: You brought home a troll.  
TT: Kid, what the fuck did I tell you about deus-exing other people's lives for them?  
TG: to not to  
TG: but listen   
TG: hes in real bad shape   
TG: but his little brothers worse  
TG: hes been hooking to get medicine or something for him  
TT: ...  
TT: Wow.  
TT: You sure you aren't just high on absinthe or something?  
TG: i fucking wish  
TG: no i think also the asshole who runs zoo station maybe did something to ampora  
TG: what does  
TG: no i dont want to know what gillplay means   
TT: You probably don't.  
TT: I can tell you, in detail, if you change your mind.   
TG: dammit bro  
TG: your job is disturbing porn  
TG: mine is ill jams  
TG: lets keep it that way  
TT: Fair enough. Do you want me to come over?  
TG: yeah  
TG: yeah i do   
TG: i mean if youre not in the middle of anything  
TT: Nothing I can't postpone.  
TG: i do not want to know   
TT: Be there shortly.  
TT: Stay cool, little man.  
TG: i am  
TG: shits approaching zero fucking kelvin up in this bitch  
TG: nothing can outchill me as you well know  
TT: ...Go sit down and take deep breaths.  
TG: yeah ok   
TG: think i will


	2. Chapter 2

_but I feel like I'm living in a TV show_  
 _rolling with the punches, goin' with the flow_

~

"It's Camus," Bro says, and you jerk awake. 

You'd dozed off at the kitchen table, without meaning to, after doing what you could to get Amporas minor and major relatively comfortable. He's leaning in the doorway, shades and hat and gloves and all, a sixpack dangling from one hand. He looks fresh as a fucking daisy, which you emphatically don't.

You rub at the back of your neck. "Jesus fuck, could you not? How'd you get in?"

"You are seriously asking me that, little bro?" He tosses you a beer. "Camus wrote 'The Stranger.' Sure, he was _influenced_ by Sartre, but c'mon, get your fuckin' French lit straight. I had a look at your trolls just now--they're completely sacked out, but you weren't kiddin' about them being in bad shape."

It's...uh...ten a.m. Brunch time. You crack the beer and swallow half of it in a few gulps, regale the kitchen in general with a massive burp, and start to feel somewhat more awake. "I couldn't get any sense out of Cronus as to what exactly is _wrong_ with the kid--the only thing he said about himself was that some john wanted gillplay and he hadn't...cleaned up? well enough afterward." Eurgh. 

It must show on your face, because Bro comes over and twirls one of the other chairs of your extremely ironic mid-century modern dinette set round and straddles it, all business. "Troll xeno shit is like any other kink spectrum, it has a hell of a lot of variety."

"Are you gonna give me a porn lecture?" you ask, taking another gulp. 

"Yes, so shut up and bend your shell-like ear. A lot of the bestselling xeno shit involves gills as well as nook and bulge--"

"Do I really need to know this?"

"Sack up and listen," he says, and you know he chose that particular phrase entirely on purpose. "There's whole subforums on trollfetlife devoted solely to gill stuff. Problem is, those things are fucking delicate as hell, and they get messed up real easy if you don't take care with what you're doing. And while a successful escort has a lot more leeway in what they will and will not do with clients, street workers don't have the luxury of choice. Some of them are desperate."

"I do not wanna know what gets stuck into what," you tell him, eyes squinched shut. "Fuck, that's like...that's like messing with somebody's _lungs_."

"Which is one of the aspects that excites some people. Gillplay is effectively breathplay."

"I fucking hate it when you get didactic about kinks," you moan. He reaches across the table and fucks up your hair, just like he always did when you were a little kid. 

"Why do you think I do it so often? Okay, point is that rough gillplay can really hurt a troll. I didn't get a real close look at him, but I'm betting he's got 'em infected, that needs treating. The little kid...his are inflamed, so are his neck frilly things, but thank fuck they don't look like anybody's been messing with 'em."

This had not hitherto occurred to you, and you finish the rest of your beer in a hurry. "Cronus said something about a refill he needed to buy."

"You didn't pick up any medicine when you swung by his pathetic garret?"

"No. It was kind of a hurried operation, _actually_."

"Welp." Bro cracks a beer of his own. "When was the last time you ate anything?"

"Uh...."

"Thought so. Make me breakfast and we'll go see what can be done."

The tone makes all the difference. It's not flippant being-a-dick-because-he-can, it's the Bro who came and dealt with you in the middle of the night when you had shitty dreams or felt sick, the Bro who made things better; it's the Bro who always somehow knows what to do, and the authority in the room reverses polarity with a force you can almost feel. It is _very_ nice being told what to do, all of a sudden. 

You flip him off and go to get out a skillet and the bacon. 

~

Cronus is lying on your spare bed, which is actually a pull-out couch. He'd made alarming gurgly sounds if he lay flat on his back, so you'd propped him up with the couch cushions as well as pillows, which seemed to help. You hadn't had the wherewithal or the brains to try and get him in the shower when you finally got home, so he's still fairly ripe, and when you unbutton his shirt you're totally not prepared for the mess you discover. 

"Gnnh--" you push yourself instinctively backward, away from that horrorshow, and it gets Bro's attention. Unfortunately it also half-wakes Cronus, who writhes a bit and slits his eyes open, staring up at you with glittering purple intensity. You swallow hard. "Uh, hey, dude."

"....Dave," he rasps. 

"Yup. You, uh. You're kinda fucked up, just...lie still, okay..."

" _Eridan_ ," and this time the rasp is desperate, he pushes himself up against the pillows, staring wildly around. 

"He's okay," says Bro, calmly. "He's sleeping. Here."

Eridan is so small that you'd been able to bed him down in one of those twenty-gallon Rubbermaid storage container thingies, wrapped in blankets and padded with a pillow as a makeshift mattress. Bro picks up the incredibly inappropriate crib and carries it over to the sofabed, setting it down beside Cronus. A lot of the terror and anxiety drains out of the troll as he sees his brother's face, reaches to touch one of the fins. 

"...where are we?"

"My place," you say. "We went by yours and picked him up, came straight here. Uh, this is my bro, Dirk Strider."

"Sup," says Bro, with a slight nod. Cronus stares at him, and then back at you. 

"What are you gonna do with us?"

"We-elll," your brother drawls, "we thought maybe braisin' the pair of you in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms, and garlic, but then again where'd we put the leftovers?--We're gonna _help_ you, of course. Get you guys medicine. Mop a fevered brow or two."

Cronus opens and shuts his mouth several times without actually producing words, and then just mumbles "I hate shallots," and smiles--a tiny little smile, one you wouldn't be sure you'd even seen if you weren't sitting right there. 

~

It turns out Eridan's prescription refill is a boring old albuterol inhaler, not so different from the ones you'd had when you were a kid. You have to go out anyhow to pick up your shit from Zoo Station and get paid, so you offer to drop in and get the meds on your way back. 

(The other reason for this completely obvious and reasonable offer is you not being there while Bro does whatever he has to do to Cronus's gills, because holy _shit_ that had been horrendous, three swollen purple gashes down each side of his chest, stained with bruising and weeping sticky violet matter, and there were things _moving_ as he _breathed_ , long sort of fine tendril things you don't wanna think about. Bro's the expert on troll gills, he can deal.)

During the day Zoo Station is pretty much dead, but you know Dugan's in his office because his I'm An Asshole car is parked outside. He doesn't need a vanity plate to proclaim his assholitude: the car says it all, from the totally unnecessary chrome trim on every edge the detailers could find to the...yeah, okay, those are truck nutz. You avert your eyes and hurry in. 

"Boss around?" you ask one of the janitors, who's mopping behind the bar, on your way to case up your gear. He nods, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, and you go to knock on Dugan's door. 

"Come," he says. You know he leaves off the "in" for effect. 

"Hey, Mr. Dugan. I've come for my last check."

"Your _last_ check?" he smiles from behind his desk. "Leaving us, are you, Strider?"

"Looking for new career opportunities."

"Sit down a second," he invites you. "Have a drink."

"It's eleven in the morning," you say, despite having had beer brunch. 

"Sun is over the yardarm somewhere in the world, that you can take to the fuckin' bank, kid." 

Something in his voice makes you sit down, very still, very focused. 

"So, trolls," he says, and leans his heavy forearms on the desk. "Fuckin' weird, am I right? Got all that crazy hentai junk goin' on. But the funny thing is, sometimes they get uppity. Just between you and me, Strider, you know, they can't help it, it's bi-logical, it's natural they're just not like us."

Is he giving you the twenty-first century equivalent of 'them [epithets] is just different from white folks'? Survey says _fuck this dude with a fireax._

"I have to go, Mr. Dugan."

"Siddown. So when I'm enjoyin' myself the other night this skinnyass purple tells me he _does so_ have friends who ain't whores or trollwhores, and I say, oh really now, who might they be, and he comes out with your name bold as fuckin balls."

"How about you just put the check in the mail," you say, getting up again. 

"Are you a troll-lover, kid?" he wants to know. "You soft on them trolls?"

"Mr. Dugan, I'm not the one who pays money to fuck them," you say, and off his indescribable expression, you make your exit. In something of a fucking hurry. 

~

By the time you get to the pharmacy--a battered, beleaguered-looking CVS that's obviously about to close and move for less violent climes--your desire to punch someone until their face turns inside out has simmered down to just angry disgust. Jesus fuck, the way he'd said _troll-lover_. Like, _we don't take kindly to troll-lovers round these parts._ Like the fucking movies. 

_If I wasn't already, Dugan,_ you think, _I sure as fuck am now._

There's three people already waiting when you get there, and it takes the sole beleaguered pharmacist a while to get to you. "Uh, I'm here to get a refill for Eridan Ampora?" You hand over the grubby slip of paper Cronus had carefully withdrawn from an inner pocket. 

"Oh, the little troll kid?" She looks from the paper to you. "Uh, I'm gonna need to see some ID, sir."

You fish out your wallet, show her your license. "They're staying with me for a little while, uh. I'm a friend of his."

She squints at you, and you take off your shades. You can see her eyes widen at yeah, that IS the color of your irises, note the lack of any contact ring round the outside, plus the pupil doesn't slide around when you blink. "It's been a real long night and it's already shaping up to be a long day, ma'am. Eridan's brother's not well, or he'd have come himself."

The obvious question--why would anybody bother to try obtaining albuterol on false pretenses--decides her, and she just nods. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Strider. He always seems so polite and worried, it's just a shame his brother's illness needs so much of his time." 

You don't comment, just leaning on the counter, and she takes the hint and bustles off to get the medicine. Ampora doesn't have insurance, of course, and whichever brand the doctor decreed was right for Eridan is not one of the generic cheapie versions. Without commenting on this, you just put it on your card. 

You have a feeling that card is gonna get a mother fucking workout in the near future. 

~

"Here," you say, and toss the white pharmacy bag underhand to Bro, who's...got a bundle of blankets in his arms. He fields it with ease. "I'm done with Zoo fucking Station."

"Dugan give you any shit?"

"Dugan gave me a whole heaping plateful with a doggy bag to go. I'll tell you all about it later, but hopefully someone in the office can drop the check in the mail before he gets around to burning it." You flop into a chair. "How's the field hospital?"

A small grey-purple hand has extruded itself from the blanket-lump in Bro's arms and has a fistful of his shirt very tight in its grip. "Could be worse," he says. "Spent a while cleaning out Cronus's breathing tackle, during and after which he passed out, which is probably for the best. This little dude woke up, freaked the fuck out, started to wheeze pretty bad, but when I put him on the bed beside his bro he seemed to chill."

"Looks like he's cool with you now," you say. 

"Yeah, we had a fun game of 'who the fuck are you,' but I guess he figures anyone Cronus trusts to do shit with his gills is not gonna hurt him."

He walks Eridan over to you, leans down so you can get a glimpse of the small face squinched against his chest. "Thanks for getting the medicine."

"'S okay. Gave me a chance to cool down after Dugan." You rub at your face. "Bro, I, uh. Thanks. For dropping everything and dashing over here to save the day, again. I would be so incredibly fucked if you weren't here."

"Eh, you'd have found a way." He straightens up at Eridan's murmur of complaint. "But it's cool. 'S what I'm for. That and handing your ass to you at strifing."

"We haven't done that in a while." You look over at the still form of your friend-acquaintance, finding it hard to reconcile the lump on your pull-out couch with the slick made-up troll for hire. "We should. When the weather's good. And we don't have to worry about other people needing the first-aid kit."

"A good host is always well-stocked on suture supplies," Bro agrees. "It is possible, though, that one or both of these guys is gonna need someone other than a shade-tree stitch artist to look at them. You got any handy medical pals who don't ask questions?"

"Shit, and I closed off all my mob connections last week." You snap your fingers. It gets a chuckle out of him, as you'd hoped. "Eridan has to've seen someone with prescribing privileges to have got hold of that shit in the first place, but I kinda want to ask why they specified one of the name-brands for a patient with no insurance. I mean, that shit's not super cheap."

"'s cause they changed it." Another country is heard from, and you look over to find Cronus watching you with slitted, glittery eyes. "The...whatever, FDA, said you can't use the old kind anymore...somethin' t' do with the ozone layer...so now there ain't no generics. I asked about that."

You get up, go over to the edge of the sofa-bed. "Well, that sucks. Anyway, don't worry about it, that thing's got something like two hundred doses in it, he's set for a while. What about you, dude? You gonna make it?"

"Maybe," he croaks. "Feel like ass an' death, Dave. You guys don't got any very hard drugs lyin' round the place, by any chance?"

"Finished those this morning." You shake your head in profound regret. He actually laughs, but this is a mistake because it does something inside his chest and he sort of chokes and those weird frilly things on his neck flare out. Bro snaps something, but you're already getting your arm around him, careful of his wrecked gills, helping him sit up, thumping his back. After a few unpleasant moments he hacks up something into a wad of tissues and gasps in a breath, and another, and okay, what the _fuck_ was that. 

"I think you might be right about the doctor thing," you tell Bro, looking up at him. Eridan's making a high-pitched sort of monotonous grizzle noise, distressed at Cronus's distress, and Bro is doing what you vaguely, dimly remember him doing with you, tucking the kid's head under his chin and swaying in a sinuous sort of way that had felt like lying in a gently-rocking hammock. "Cronus, where did you take him?"

"Walk-in clinic," Cronus wheezes, and you're still taking most of the weight of his shoulders. "Next to the methadone place, you know, on Fremont."

One of your better shots is a wide-angle taken from a set of steps on Fremont Street. You'd wondered if you could ask the shuffling patients to move out of shot for a second, and then thought, why the fuck would you do that. They're part of that neighborhood, erasing them from your picture would be exactly the kind of shit you're trying to avoid. 

"They'd have his records. You ever go there for yourself?"

"Once. I got cut on." 

You wince, but you're still holding him. His head droops to your shoulder, and you don't move, just wondering what _happened_ , how he went from the cheerful middle-class decently-paid escort he'd told you about to this wreck. "Lemme see if I can find their hours online. We can get you guys over there this afternoon if they're open. Get you some actual medical help."

Cronus looks like he's about to protest, and then just leans more heavily against you. "Mmkay," he says, and it's probably the most domestic and unsophisticated thing you've ever heard from him. It is starting to really bug you, how fucked-up he is--and his tiny snip of a brother--and how much of that is directly the fault of people like the asshole you'd walked out on this morning. 

Along with the insistent need to _fix them_ a new desire is beginning to unfold: _fuck Dugan's shit up._

"Cronus, dude, can you shift a little to your left, your horn's trying to perforate my jugular."

"Sorry," and he tries to pull all the way away, and is that an actual purple blush on his face? It's so faint it's hard to tell, he's still sort of the color of fish underbellies rather than the rich grey he ought to be, but he definitely went purpler just then. 

"Nah, nah, just...here, scoot over a bit." He wriggles sideways with a grunt of discomfort, and you sit properly on the bed beside him and guide his head down to rest more comfortably on your shoulder. "Okay?"

He nods against you. "Cool. Just, like. Flail around violently if you need another thump on the back, dude." 

You pull out your phone, and, one-handed, search for clinic hours. Bro has not said a word, but you can _feel_ him looking at you, and it's not the 'I taught you better' look, it's the 'that'll do, kid' one. You'd worked fucking _hard_ for that look, when you were younger. 

It still feels like a warm bath for your brain.


	3. Chapter 3

_and Ozzie and Harriet are talkin' to me_  
 _saying here's how_  
 _a boy should be_

~

You drive a beat-up old third-generation Firebird, which means a) you have shitty gas mileage, b) you hum the Knight Rider theme to yourself at stop lights, and c) passengers have to either be limited to one in number or very diminutive in stature. Since it's normally just you, or you and your gear, this is not a problem you often deal with. 

Bro is definitely the tallest, so he gets shotgun by default. You have to help Cronus, who is seriously not cool with prolonged perambulation at this point, duck into your car's excuse for a back seat. Eridan curls up with him. You don't like how the little troll is sort of limp, unprotesting, just subdued. 

"You sure you want to be doing this with your car?" Bro asks, mildly, as you get going. "I mean, sure, this heap ain't worth much, but Fremont's not the kind of place I'd want to park."

"Yo, don't be calling Michael a heap, he's very sensitive." You pat the wheel. "And it's not like we're parking overnight or anything. In, get some prescriptions, out. How hard can it be?"

Almost as soon as you hear the words come out of your mouth you realize you have now jinxed the entire fucking mission, and _sigh_. From Michael's back seat comes a duet of highly unpleasant-sounding coughs, and you speed up a little further. 

There are other people waiting to be seen when you get to the clinic, of course, several of them, and your heart sinks, but the lady behind the front desk gets an eyeful of Cronus drooping from your shoulder and it seems you got bumped up on the check-in list. He is kind of a grotesque sight, you have to admit, even in a clean shirt with his gills wrapped in gauze underneath it; sheened with an odd faintly purple sweat, eyelids at half-mast, breathing noisily. They tell you to come on back. 

~

You have the same surreal sensation of the previous evening that none of this can actually be happening, that _how is this your life_ , listening to a brisk nurse practitioner discuss seatroll gills with your brother, whose knowledge is pretty limited to how they pertain to prurient interests. Your photography project has now expanded in scope to the point where you know way more than you ever wanted to about land/sea respiration physiological challenges. The nurse draws you a diagram, despite your protests that it really isn't necessary. It seems there are both lungs _and_ gills, and a system of valves that closes and opens as required to let the troll breathe air or water, and the infection from his injured gill tissue has spread through these valves and gotten into his lungs, and that...kind of sounds serious. 

"I'm going to start him on antibiotics immediately," says the nurse. "This started with an infection consequent on gill injury; it's probably not viral." He's not the kind of dude you'd expect to be working in a low-income clinic on Fremont Street: he's large and muscular and has long black hair reaching in a braid quite a long way down his back. He talks with a faint accent you can't place; looks like he could be from someplace in the Middle East, not that that narrows it down. "--Sorry, it's rude to talk over your head, Mr. Ampora. Are you allergic to any medications that you're aware of?"

Cronus shakes his head, miserable. "Good, then we'll start you on ampicillin/flucloxacillin, and then adjust that once these culture results come back. You'll need to flush the gills regularly--warm salt water is fine--and keep a light dressing over them to stop anything getting in." He scribbles on a pad and hands you a prescription.

"We can handle that," you say. The nurse nods, briskly. 

"Now, let's see, Eridan....we've seen you before for this, haven't we? May I have a listen?"

He's obviously scared, but Cronus manages a smile and pats the exam table beside him. "C'mon, Eri, it's okay. Remember last time, they gave you a lollipop after."

This seems to convince him. Bro carefully sets the kid down and the enormous bishie-haired dude listens carefully to his chest and back. "Mm. Some inflammation here. Has he been using the inhaler properly?"

Cronus looks down at the floor. "Kinda ran out couple weeks ago," he rasps. "I din't have enough t' cover the refill..."

"Why on earth didn't you come _here_ if he was out of meds?" 

He blinks up at the nurse, who is sort of towering, arms folded. You are reminded of Easter Island. "Cause....I still wouldn'ta had enough to cover it here?"

"Cronus, we have _samples_ of meds--not many, I'll grant, but for something like this that he really must have, we would have worked out some way to get him covered until you could pay for the refill." 

"Oh," Cronus says, and droops, looking even more miserable, and jesus fucking christ your heart just _cracked_. "I din't know that."

"Well. Now you do." One enormous hand rests briefly on his shoulder. "You have the inhaler now, though?"

Bro produces it from his pocket. "Filled this morning."

"Great, that'll go a long way toward resolving this. Keep him warm, lots of fluids, make sure he eats well, all that sort of thing, and call us if he doesn't show any improvement in a few days. --Eridan, you'll feel better soon," he adds. 

"Hurts t'breathe," the kid says. He has this little raspy voice, a tiny version of his brother's.

"I know, but it'll get easier now that you have your medicine again. --He can have children's Advil for pain. You can get away with the adult version."

This makes one corner of Cronus's mouth quirk briefly upward, but only briefly. "Do you have any questions?" the nurse asks. 

"How long's it gonna take f'r this to go away?" Cronus gestures at his chest. "I have t'get back to work."

"I've written you two weeks' worth of antibiotics. You have to keep taking them even when you feel better, you know that, right?"

"Two _weeks_?" Cronus yelps and starts to cough, and you steady him. "I c-can't be outta work that long, c'mon, Doc, seriously--"

"Sure you can," you say, keeping your hand on his back, seeing again how brightly interested he'd been in your project, how goddamn good a listener he'd been. What had your bro said last night, what have I told you about deus-exing other people's lives for them? Fuck it, you can feel weird about that later. "We got you, okay? Don't worry about it." 

"Dave, fuck, I can't just be like 'lemme mooch off a you for a fuckin fortnight,' that shit is crazy."

"No, sure, but you can be like 'I say, thank you for the invitation to be your houseguest for a fortnight, old chap, it's frightfully good of you, I'm pleased to accept'. You gotta do the snooty accent, though, that's part of the deal."

He nearly stabs you in the neck with a horn as he lets his head flop on your shoulder, and you're a little taken aback to hear him sniffle. "Right, that's settled then," you say smoothly, looking up at the nurse and your brother, who have apparently been having a quiet conversation of their own. "We all set?"

"Yup," says Bro, and pockets what looks like a business card. "C'mon, let's go get this shit filled and go home."

"You forgot the lollipop," says the nurse, whose nametag reads something improbable like Zahhak.

~

They sleep for the rest of the afternoon. Bro takes the opportunity to expose your poor relatively-innocent computers to shit the likes of which they have never seen, and you are too busy putting together shit for your gig the following night to argue with him about it. You're playing Haven, which is a smallish gay club in one of the more fashionable bits of town, and while it doesn't pay anything like as well as Zoo Station, it's a genuinely nice establishment, the couple who run it are friendly and sensible, and, well. There's a nice view from the DJ table, most nights. 

You have no idea how many hours have passed when you close down your racks and hook the headphones over your lamp: it comes as a surprise to find that it's coming up on nine at night. No wonder your neck and shoulders hurt, jesus. 

You hear Bro and Cronus talking, and almost go out to join them until you catch what it is they're actually saying. 

"...just feel so fuckin' _dumb_ , like, he went without his meds for two goddamn _weeks_ cause I didn't know to go ask for help. He's little an' he's sick an' I'm s'posed to _stop_ him gettin' worse, not the other way round..." 

Oh, jesus. But Bro's talking. "Shit, nobody can know _everything_ , man. You didn't know, that's way different from knowing and not doing anything about it. Anyway, it's not like people give out medicine for free as a, you know, common trope, that'd be commie-socialist."

Cronus makes a little noise somewhere between a sniffle and a snicker. "I coulda thought about askin' though," he says. "I mean, like, it just din't occur to me that was a thing."

"Years ago," says Bro, "when Dave was little and I was new to the whole what-the-fuck-do-I-do-with-a-kid deal, I was broke as hell. Like, they cut off the power broke. Having to eat cold canned ravioli in the dark broke. _I_ could've dealt with it, but he was just a little kid, making him go through that cracked my goddamn heart." 

You're remembering this, very vaguely: it was dark, and the microwave was broken, or something, and Bro said you couldn't have the milk from the fridge cause it was warm. It hadn't really signified as desperate privation to you at the time, more like a kind of weird fucked-up game. 

"--So I was like, okay, this has got to be fixed, and I wasn't gonna get paid at work for another week, so I scrounged up whatever I could hock and got the lights turned back on. A little while after that whole episode I think I was talking to some lady at the food bank about man, those power companies, they really like to screw you over, and she looked at me like I was dumb as a sack of hammers and told me about the emergency assistance programs that exist for _exactly that situation_."

Cronus sniffles. "Shit, I wish they covered trolls."

"They might. I think you gotta have, like, a social security card or proof of status as a lawful resident or something, but they're big on people not having their power shut off. I got help from the Texas office two summers running, cause the cost of keeping that place down below 95 in the middle of July was a lot more'n I could even hope to cover."

You'd had some breathing difficulties of your own, that you _do_ remember, and how the heat had made them worse: how Bro had moved the ancient dribbling AC unit to your room when it got real bad, told you to keep the door shut. The rest of the apartment had been...hot.

"Poverty doesn't come with a handbook, Ampora," Bro says, almost gently. "Specially if you're new to it. He's got his meds now, he's gonna get better, and now you know there's a safety margin if you get behind on the refills again. --Talking of, time for your own meds." You hear him get up and fetch Cronus a glass of something to take the pill with, and there's the sound of a plate being set down. "Zahhak said it's a good idea to eat something with these, makes them less likely to upset your innards."

 _Zahhak_ , you think. Weird name for a weird guy. But you judge that Older Brother Confession Time is done with for now, and wander out into the living room to join the others, more curious than ever about what had so drastically altered Cronus's income level.

~

It's two a.m. when Cronus calls your name softly, waking you out of a weird dream involving mattress labels and the consequences of their removal. You'd left your door open for precisely this reason, since it's just across the hall from the living room. Getting out of bed, your eyes wide in the dimness, you can hear a miserable little high-pitched breathless cough. 

"He needs his thing," Cronus whispers, glowing a little brighter than he had when you'd found him. "His inhaler."

You had actually come to that conclusion independently, but just nod, and lean down to scoop the kid out of his pillow-nest in the Rubbermaid bin (you have seriously got to find something less inappropriate and hilarious for him to sleep in, jesus christ). He even reaches his little arms up to you to be lifted, even though you've never held him before and he's in considerable distress and probably scared as hell, poor little guy. 

You sit on the edge of the fold-out bed with him on your lap, shaking up the inhaler for him, and oh christ his hands are too small to really hold it properly. "Gonna count to three, okay?" He nods frantically, and you give him the three-count and trigger the dose for him.

It _always_ feels like it won't work, you remember that, too, and you're convinced it won't, and then suddenly it does. His difficult breathless cough turns into wheezing, and then deepens into normal breathing. You've been rubbing his back in little circles the whole time, careful of his gills. 

He's exhausted, poor kid, and even after you're pretty sure he's okay and the attack's over you don't put him back in the bed-bin--partly because he's got a handful of your shirt clutched in one fist and is leaning against you. There's a little soft sound from the heap of blankets that is Cronus; you look over. He's watching with bright slitted eyes, but he's smiling. "Thanks."

"'S okay." Eridan is drooping more heavily in your lap, and the small fingers are lessening their grip on your shirt. "He's a brave little squirt, Cronus. Didn't even cry, and that was a bad one."

"You knew how to use the thing." It's not a question. 

"Yup. Had a touch of this when I was a little kid. It fucking sucks."

Eridan emits a tiny snore. 

~

Much of the next day is spent in the most mundane of domestic pursuits like groceries and laundry, and the trolls sleep. "Best thing for 'em," says Bro, but he does have to turf Cronus out of bed to go flush his gills--and you go somewhere else while he does that. In return, you cook dinner. The foundation of any stable household, you're sure you read somewhere, is collaboration.

You're about to get your shit together to leave for Haven when you get a call. From Haven.

"Strider," you say, wondering if they want you to do a double set, sometimes they ask you that when the other dude scheduled to work calls in. 

"Uh, yeah," says the voice on the other end, and you recognize Gavin, one of the guys who owns the place. "Listen, the, uh, schedule for tonight has changed."

"Shit, did DJ Unreliable call again?" He styles himself DJ Unreal and wears those cretin cyberpunk goggles on his forehead. You kind of wonder sometimes why he still gets work. 

"No," says Gavin. "I, uh. Know we agreed on a single payment for last week and tonight, so I'm going to cut you a check for last week. We don't need you to come in."

You take the phone away from your ear, stare at it. "Gavin, what's this about? Did I suck real bad last week or something?"

"No." He sounds miserable. "It's just, well, Haven's reputation depends on our customers feeling comfortable with the performers, and...well, certain information has come to our attention and we just feel like this is the best decision for everyone."

He clearly wants to get you off the phone, but you're not done. And you have a sick sinking feeling who vouchsafed 'information' to them. "Dugan, right? This is something about trolls? Christ, Gavin, since when do you listen to Tommy Dugan? I walked out of his office yesterday cause he said some things I found incredibly offensive and bigoted, and seemed to assume I was going to agree with him."

"Look," Gavin almost pleads, "I'm sorry it has to be this way, Dave, you've been a real asset to us in the past, but we just can't have a headliner who's a known xenophile."

"A _what_? He told you _I_ have sex with trolls?"

"I'm sorry, Dave." _Click_.

 

You call the three other clubs you're scheduled at in the next fortnight. None of them have any hours for you. Two say with variants on a nervous laugh that your style isn't a good match with the direction they want to take the club in, and one just says they're not interested, thanks, and hangs up. 

You are starting to think that having principles is a fucking expensive thing to try.


	4. Chapter 4

_but fight it_  
 _just hold on to someone close to you  
_ _there's something very very strange going on around here_

~

"Dugan," says Cronus, across the breakfast table. He's actually up and out of bed; another night of rest has put some color back in his weird earfin things. You hadn't told them about the new development in your career until now, and it's really distressing how much their sympathy affects you. It's hard to keep your voice in a careless drawl. 

"Yeah, guess he didn't take too kindly to me walking out on him." You shrug. Bro is watching you with his eyes narrowed, his face set and hard. He looks like he could be carved out of alabaster except for those vivid orange eyes. "'S no big. I'll find something else."

"Dugan fucked up my gills," Cronus reminds you. "An' I'm pretty sure I ain't the first troll he's done that to. He knew exactly where to stick his fuckin' fingers so I couldn't move without hurtin' myself."

You hide a wince, and are secretly relieved that it was his _fingers_ Dugan had used, because, oh, god, no, not finishing that thought, that thought goes right on the Do Not Want pile. "How're you feeling now, dude? You look better."

"I am better. Still hurts like a motherfucker but I c'n breathe." He nods at Bro. "Thanks t'you."

Bro nods back, absently, looking preoccupied, and you eat bacon with an effort. What the fuck _are_ you going to do for cash? If all the damn clubs in the damn city have you blacklisted because Dugan's spread the word that you're a trollfucker, you are going to have some serious issues paying rent in the near future. 

Cronus is also looking preoccupied, you realize, and you look harder at him. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah," he says, and the earfin things splay wider, purple speckles glowing along their ribs. "Yeah, I'm good. Been too woozy to think straight before. Dave, Dugan ain't just a perv, he's a perv with a thing for takin' photo souvenirs. I was hurtin' pretty bad by then but I'm sure he took a couple shots a the whole thing with his phone."

You stare at him. Bro stares at him. 

"He's tryin' to get on City Council," Bro says. "I wonder what they'd think of those pics."

"Shit, he'd kill me, he'd kill Cronus, he's not the kind of dude you fuck with--"

"He's the kind of dude who relies on people thinking exactly that, little man," Bro tells you, and reaches across the table to fuck up your hair.

~

You're still not convinced after breakfast, and distract yourself by giving Eridan shoulder-rides round the apartment. He's amazed at having to duck under the doorframes and being able to touch the ceiling-fan's hanging cord. He's so _little_ that even his grip on your hair is light, and you relish each little sound of happy surprise. When you lift him down he clings to your neck, refusing to let go. 

"He likes you," Cronus says in his raspy voice. You look up from the tiny zigzag horns and find him leaning in the doorway to the living-room, wearing your ironic dragon-embroidered dressing-gown, arms folded. On him it looks non-ironic. "Doesn't often take t' people like that. Then again he doesn't often get a chance to meet that many people." 

Eridan is still not very well, and the excitement of getting to ride on your shoulders has tired him out; he droops against you with terrible disarming trust. "He's a great kid," you say, softly. "You should be proud of him."

"Oh, I am."

There's something in his voice that makes you look up again, and frown. "But?"

"But nothin'. I just. Wish I could give him a better life, y'know? One with, like, central heatin' an' fewer cockroaches in it."

"What _happened_ , dude?" It's out before you can clamp down on the obnoxious question. "--Shit, sorry, not my business--"

"He asleep?"

You look down at the tousled dark head. Eridan gives a very small snore. "Yeah, he's out."

"Then I'll tell you, Strider, but I warn you it ain't a terribly original or rivetin' narrative. You might even say _predictable_."

You've never seen Cronus like this, and just go to settle Eridan in his makeshift bed. He mumbles something you don't quite catch and curls up on his side, a small knot of troll, precious and improbable. His older brother is watching you with that unreadable expression. 

"Siddown," he says. "I told you I was a escort once, right?"

"Yeah."

"I was good at it. Had a decent place, made good money, dreams a bein' a real high-class courtesan one day. I was pretty, Dave, like, seriously fuckin' pretty. Good clothes an' all. Had my hair did, nice makeup, the whole bit."

He closes his eyes, sitting back on the fold-out bed. The voice is raspy, but somehow inexorable. "Then one day about six months ago I get this call from child services, who don't deal with trolls all that often. Apparently there's this little troll kid they picked up wanderin' the fuckin' streets an' he says his name's Ampora. I'm the only Ampora in the phone book."

You say nothing, just listening, perched on the edge of the bed. "I never knew I even had a goddamn brother, Dave, but apparently whoever he was with before he came here knew I existed an' sent him to me. God, he was so tiny. And sick." Cronus rubs at his face. "I couldn't work for a while, had to spend all my time takin' care a him, an' the meds an' doctor visits were expensive as a motherfuck. I had no insurance, a course. Ended up pawnin' a lot a my shit. Then, well. 'Member back on the street I told you how that goes, you can't afford to look pretty so you don't get the work, so you can't afford to look decent, so you don't get the work, an' pretty soon you're in the fuckin' gutter lookin' up an' everythin's outta reach."

His eyes are closed. "I wouldn'ta done anythin' different, that kid's the moon an' stars t'me, but..."

You reach out and touch his hand, and he curls toward you helplessly and you just put your arms around him and hold him close, and let him bury his hacking sobs in your shoulder.

~

"I am not breaking into Dugan's fucking condo to steal his phone," you say, pointedly. Bro gives you the _you haven't been listening_ sigh. 

"Not askin' you to, kiddo. We can get hold of those pics another way."

"What, by hacking the internets?"

"Kind of." He had gone back to his place to fetch his laptop and some other stuff, and is now sitting at the kitchen table typing rapidly. You look over his shoulder and then do an abrupt about-face because wow you had _so_ not needed to see a dude lifting weights with his dong. "What? It's a fetish site, kid, you expect amusing photographs. Here we are, trollfetlife." 

You chance a peek. Two trolls doin' it with their bizarre tentacle dick things. Okay, that's...kind of fucked up, but at least it doesn't make you want to curl up in a fetal position to protect your junk. Bro clicks through page after page, and you are really glad this is _his_ search history, not yours. There's...so much of it. So many goddamn kinks you had no idea even existed, and you're feeling pretty provincial and vanilla by the time he reaches the gillplay section. 

That's really fucking disturbing. There are pictures of trolls in shades of violet and fuchsia with their...gill flap things...splayed wide and gaping so you can see all those weird filaments inside; pictures of trolls with the flaps pierced like ears; pictures of humans doing stuff to trolls that you don't actually want to think about. At this point the site wants passwords and security questions before it lets Bro see anything about the individual posters who uploaded the shots. The fact that he gets in immediately with the handle smuppetmaster is also something you hadn't needed to witness. 

"This is where the real deviants are," he says, typing. "Where you go when you really, _really_ don't want anyone in the outside world to know what you do with the blinds closed."

"Why do they risk posting shit on the internet, then?"

"Cause they want their peer group to know when they get lucky. --Bingo."

The picture loads slowly: it's huge, grainy and blurred, a selfie shot at arm's length. A flabby, pallid man on top of a seatroll with his hands tied to the bedposts; the troll's head is thrown back in obvious pain, which is understandable given that the fingers of the fat man's other hand are buried up to the second knuckle in the troll's gills. There's violet everywhere, and you don't want to know if it's blood or something else. 

The man's face is blurry but recognizable; even if it wasn't, there's no mistaking the tattoo on his arm, a thick band of the ersatz tribal scrawl that was popular in the nineties, with a Celtic cross superimposed. 

"I don't feel good," you say. 

"Yeah, me either." Bro turns the laptop a little away from you and types again, rapidly. "Gonna have to jump through some hoops first, but I'll have that stunnin' work of photographic genius on its way to the City Council shortly. Might also put it up on some of the LED billboards heading into town, what do you think?"

"You wanna cause traffic accidents?" But the idea does appeal. "Put Dugan's name and contact information on the bottom of the pic, though."

"Way ahead of you, kid." He's totally capable of getting into the advertising software that runs those billboards--last year he'd changed two of them to show clips of Rick Astley on April 1. You'd told him it was old meme, and he'd said: yes, which is the point, kiddo, it's ironic.

Sometimes you really, really love your bro.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now illustrated by the fantastic [roachpatrol](http://roachpatrol.tumblr.com/)!

_I said fight it_  
 _just hold on, it's the best that we can do_  
 _I'll meet you anywhere you like same time next year_  
 _Out on the new frontier_

"Psst!"

You roll over and bury your face in the pillows. Too early. You hadn't slept at all well, waking up repeatedly with the conviction that Dugan was in the corner of your room, smiling that oily smile. "G'way," you mumble.

"You gotta see this," says the voice, and you recognize the rasp. Cronus sits on the edge of your bed, rests a hand on your shoulder, cool and pleasant. "Dave, you okay?"

"Mmh. G'way, sleeping." But you're awake now, and resentful or not you uncurl and eye him suspiciously. He's glowing....way brighter now, the fan shapes of his earfins limned in purple sparkles, lines of them along his arms and throat. "You're all lit up."

"'s right," he says. "Feelin' fine. An' you gotta see this, for real, Dave. C'mon, there's coffee."

That gets you upright, and padding after him in T-shirt and boxers you squint at the brightness of the kitchen lights. "The fuck is goin' on?"

Bro has his laptop open, cuddling a dozing Eridan against his shoulder. He turns it to face you and unmutes the volume: it's the morning news streaming video. "--live from City Hall, this is Karen Patel, back to you in the studio." It cuts to the two hairsprayed anchorpersons. Behind them Dugan's face from an old Zoo Station promo shot appears superimposed with their judge's-gavel graphic. 

"Thank you, Karen. For those of you just joining us, the news out of City Hall today is shocking. Sean 'Tommy' Dugan, proprietor of the popular Zoo Station nightclub and local entrepreneur and businessman, who has been running for election to City Council, this morning had no comment in response to anonymous accusations that he is involved with illicit xenophilic pornography. Photographic evidence allegedly implicating Dugan is being examined by the office of the District Attorney. If true, these allegations place Dugan at the center of an underground sex trafficking ring and a number of ongoing investigations in the area. Officials are not releasing information on the source of this evidence at this time. We're staying with this breaking story and will bring you updates as they happen. This is WPRK News Fourteen, all live, all local."

Bro looks at you, eyes hooded, and grins for just a second. In Strider terms, that's turning cartwheels and whooping loudly. You flop into a chair and scrub at your eyes and then somebody's got a steadying hand on your shoulder, puts a hot mug of coffee into your hands. "Even if the other shit don't stick, they can't deny that picture," Cronus says. "Dugan's fuckin' history."

Even so you can't quite shake the mood of dread. Breathing in coffee steam helps a bit, and Cronus has come to stand behind your chair and is rubbing your shoulders with hands you can tell could probably do you a lot of damage if he wanted them to, but it's a gentle, practiced massage and it undoes some of the knotted tension. "He's gonna know it was me," you say.

"No he ain't," says Bro, "the reason being, with Cronus's help I found one of Dugan's ex-cronies who used to run troll hookers out of a hotel downtown, and far as the City Hall assholes know, my email came from an IP address listed as belonging to him. Like I said, I had to jump through some hoops."

"He was up till five," Cronus says, still rubbing the knots out of your neck. "I know, cause that's when I woke up an' found him still here typin' away. Got him t'catch a couple hours sleep."

"Jesus Christ," you say, strengthlessly.

"Nope, Dirk Strider. You may now make me breakfast, junior sibling, if Mr. Ampora's quite done with his ministrations." Bro leans back in the chair and gives you that flicker of a grin again. 

"Not quite, sir." Cronus kneads his knuckles up your neck and you can't help a little groan, god, that feels stupidly good, you hadn't realized just how tense you were. "This one's tied himself in fuckin' knots with worry. Give me a minute an' I'll do us a fry-up."

Bro blinks at him, and then at you, and chuckles. "That will be quite satisfactory."

~

Cronus turns out to be able to wield a frying-pan as well as you, if not better, and he stays perky and bright-finned until after the dishes have been put away, and then sort of...droops, and you think you know the feeling. "You okay?"

"Mmh, just kinda winded," he says. He's still got your dressing-gown on, gold and pink dragons in more-than-oriental-splendor, and combined with his horns and fins and general oddness the effect is one of a rather weary Star Trek villain. It's kind of adorable. 

"No fucking wonder, you've been running around making us breakfast and being all domestic and shit. Shouldn't you still be in bed? Are your gills still bugging you?"

"Eh, a bit." He shrugs. "They're healin', I can feel it. Itches."

You don't even know why you say it: "Can I see?"

He gives you the weird look this deserves, and then shrugs and undoes the belt of the dressing-gown. Under it he's shirtless, and wow, the difference between now and when you'd first hauled him into your apartment is incredible. The swelling is almost gone, the flappy things lying almost flat in their long curves between his ribs, and all that gross purple sticky shit is gone completely. There's still dark bruising all around them, that looks like it hurts, but it's hard to believe this much improvement in just a few days. 

"Jeez," you say. "You clean up fast."

"Seadweller thing, fast healin'. Still, they're kinda tender, an' I can't really take a deep breath, it pushes on 'em from the inside." He closes the robe and ties the belt again. "Listen, Dave. I honest to fuck cannot thank you 'n Dirk enough for what you did for me an' Eri. Soon as I can, I'll get us outta your hair, but if you ever need a favor, I fuckin' owe you thirty or forty by now."

You can tell you're blushing, and wish you weren't. "Aw, shucks, mister, 'tweren't nothin'."

"Was too an' you know it." He gives you a crooked smile. "I'd offer t' invite you over to my humble abode, but humble ain't the word, as you know. Rudimentary, maybe."

You are beginning to get the germs of an idea. 

~

You picked the law firm that had the funniest TV commercial. Probably this is not a wise and considered decision, but fuck it. Bro had concurred fully. Your first meeting with Pyrope, Pyrope and Vantas had been both thoroughly entertaining and actually kind of useful, specially when you played them the messages three clubs had left on your phone after Dugan's announcement, and described the conversation with Haven's manager. Pyrope the younger had crowed viciously at your explanation of the case, and Pyrope the elder had merely nodded and smiled her enigmatic smile. Vantas, however, had to be nudged in order to get him to shut up, and you think probably he made partner simply because he could bore juries into acquiescence with the power of his voice. He's got this way of looking supercilious _and_ didactic at the same time which he has got to practice in the mirror at home, no way is that an unrehearsed expression. 

When you haul Cronus in to see them, they agree that having him publicly associated with the case is not a good idea, in case Dugan has clowns running around looking for people to blame for his current misfortune, but more importantly they have some advice for him on the various welfare agencies which cater to underprivileged children and could help out with making sure Eridan gets actual food with nutrients in it and their lights don't get turned off. 

The next few weeks are busy as hell, but the day you have Dugan served with the summons, you and Bro and your lawyers have brunch in one of the restaurants that's shown some of your pictures in the past, and you realize you haven't been in your damn darkroom for...a long time now. The sudden awareness of how much time has passed is freaky. 

"What's wrong, kid?" Bro is looking at you, eyes narrowed, across the table. 

"Nothing, just...thinking about the city photo project. I dunno what to do with it, if I should even try continuing."

"Why not?"

"Lost momentum, you know? It kinda seems dumb now, like, I dunno, frivolous."

Terezi and Latula ask what project you're talking about, and without meaning to you find yourself being drawn into a discussion of what you had wanted to do with the night shots of the city, how you'd learned things slowly but unforgettably from the people you talked to and the places they worked. Kankri is uncharacteristically silent, looking at you while you talk, and you kind of wish he wouldn't: when he isn't in full verbal flow he's capable of a very profound stare with his weird sort of burgundy-colored eyes. 

"...what?" you finally say.

"You should do a book," he informs you. 

"Pff, yeah, like I can afford to have it printed."

"Well, depending on the outcome of your lawsuit," he says, and then interrupts himself. "But I believe your project would be of interest to some of the small presses in the city. You might consider approaching them with a proposal. Your photographs and the stories behind them."

Bro taps his fingers on the table. "He's got a point there, kid. Be a pity not to use those pics, some of them are pretty impressive."

You think about it. You are still thinking about it when you get home, and you go to look through your shots from the early days of the project and think what you'd write to go with them. Gradually you fall into the story, arranging prints in the order you think they should go, scribbling sticky notesful of shorthand references to people and places and events. It's the middle of the evening when your stack of photographs of buildings and streetscapes and bridges suddenly gives up a shot of Cronus. 

It's one of the candids, he's not posing; he's half-turned away from the camera, fins spread, the light of the streetlamp visible through the delicate membrane. He's caught between the light and dark, the rich blackness of silver halide paper almost velvety in the shadows, a point of light snagged at the tip of one horn--reflection from a raindrop?--and he takes your breath away. 

You put the picture down and wonder if you could capture that strange fleeting balance again, slender troll half-lit against the rain-slick street, light and dark and movement and stillness all just hanging perfectly for the space of a shutter-click.

Maybe you _will_ try to pitch the book idea. Maybe it's worth going on with the project. Maybe you're actually better at this than you thought you were. 

~

Cronus brings Eridan over to see you, after a long day spent with your lawyers. Bro has given them a ride, and he and Cronus argue comfortably about where to order dinner from while Eridan curls up in your lap and watches Simpsons reruns with you. Cronus is apparently making more money, now, or using it more effectively, because both of them are in reasonably good shape and the kid's wearing clothes that actually fit him. It's kind of hard to reconcile with your memories of the night you found Cronus lying in the vacant lot at the end of his street, sick and hurt and friendless. 

It takes all of you by surprise when your phone rings in the middle of dinner--it's the ring you've programmed for PP&V, so you put down your chopsticks and answer. What the hell, you literally just talked to them two hours ago. "Strider."

"Guess who's decided to settle out of court?" Terezi's so loud you pull the phone away from your ear before actually registering what she said. 

"What? Are you serious?"

"Serious as our contingency fee," she says, and you can picture her shark's grin. Then she names a figure, and you nearly drop the phone. 

"...Holy _fuck_ ," you say. The room seems to swirl. Bro has his hand on your shoulder, takes the phone away, says something to her, but all you can think of is the fact that you are not going to have any trouble paying rent in the near future. At all. 

"Well, I figured it'd be pretty open-and-shut," Bro is saying. "I mean, clear evidence of slander directly damaging his livelihood, can't get more obvious than that, but wow. Yeah. Okay, sure, what time?" He scribbles something on the back of the takeout menu. "Yup, got it. Thanks, Ms. P. You guys did a fantastic job."

"What's going on?" Eridan wants to know.

"We won. Um. We won a lot."

"Enough to pay f'r medicines?"

"Enough to pay for a whole damn pharmacy," you tell him, and pick him up in a hug. Over his head you look at Cronus, and know exactly what you're going to do.

~

Six months later, you are sitting in a somewhat baroque sixteenth-floor apartment, with your book contract on the coffee table, and watching Cronus Ampora bustle. He's doing it in a purple caftan that makes him look even more like a Trek villain, and he has rings on most of his fingers. He's also wearing really good eye makeup, which makes you smile; one of the first things he'd done with the settlement money was go on a Sephora binge. "What?" he'd said, wading happily through the Lancome section. "I had to make do with a fuckin' Wet 'n Wild lipstick an' one single solitary stub a eyeliner pencil for the past months, I'm downright traumatized."

"What are you even looking for?" you ask, as he riffles through a stack of papers on his desk. 

"I know it's here somewhere. --Ha, here we go." He swans over to you in a ripple of purple satin and hands you a letter. It's from...oh, hey, it's from a pretty well-known local school, one of the private pricy schools that offer kids extras like Outward Bound and jewelry making and theater camp as well as your basic curriculum. You read out loud: "'Dear Mr. Ampora: I am pleased to inform you that Eridan Ampora has been accepted into the kindergarten program at the Wayland School. Please make sure Eridan has his immunizations up to date before he begins attending classes...' Hey, this is wonderful!"

"I know," he says, flopping happily down in a chair. "I got no fuckin' clue what immunizations he needs but I figure Nurse Z can take care a him, if he ain't too busy squirin' your brother around."

You grin. "I'll have a word with Bro, let him know he's gotta let Zahhak get some work done from time to time. So things are good?"

"Things are fuckin' great," Cronus says, sprawled dramatically. "Couple a my clients even send me flowers regular-like, shit's all civilized. An' you got the book deal?"

You lean forward and push the envelope across the table. "Check it out. All the proceeds--assuming anyone actually wants to buy the thing--are gonna go to the foundation. You have to sign some legal shit about that, I brought the papers with me."

"Still can't believe I'm on a actual board," he says, taking the envelope. His claws are beautifully lacquered the same color as his caftan. "Radically different from where I thought my life was gonna be headed, y'know?"

"I never thought I'd have to deal with the concept of capital gains taxes," you agree. "Or, like, charitable giving from the other side of it. Shit, I thought I was gonna have to move in with Bro once the clubs wouldn't hire me."

He gets up, walks over to the window. "I keep wakin' up an' expectin' all this to not be real. It's like there's this chunk a my life that was on a whole other planet, like the whole time I was workin' the streets is one reality an' this place is a different one. An' this ain't perfect, I get the nasty comments an' similar just like every other troll out there, Eri's gonna have to learn to deal with it real quick once he's in school, an' he still has nightmares about roaches walkin' on him. An' all the other street workers who _didn't_ get stupidly fuckin lucky are still in a hard line a work. Sometimes I'm like, how come I got out an' they didn't?"

You join him, looking out over the city, and put an arm round his shoulders. "I dunno, man. But at least we're trying to do something to help. It's a drop in the bucket, but hey, the foundation might be the answer to some other dude's 'how the fuck do I pay for my kid's medicine' or 'how am I gonna make rent this month'."

Cronus leans against you. "Maybe. I remember when you got me a Coke that one night it was super hot, you didn't even fuckin' know me an' you did that, an' it made shit just a little better."

You can't help it, you start singing that horrible old commercial jingle, _I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company_ , and Cronus snorts inelegantly and jabs you with a pointy alien elbow, and you retaliate by fucking up his carefully sculpted hair, and everything's good, just now, everything is just exactly as it ought to be.

 

 

_This may not be Paradise_  
 _But this is all we've got_  
 _Still it's better than Siberia_  
 _It's better than being shot_

_This is the new frontier_

\--Tony Carey


End file.
